TSA

[heironymouspasparagus]

  What did I miss here?

We refused to get on board with the "real id" thing the Fed is pushing through...to "protect" us.  Will need a valid passport if don't have an approved state ID and Oklahoma is not gonna comply (last I heard - couple weeks ago).  Fun times coming.

I am curious if a CDL from OK will be ok with TSA, since the Dept of Homeland Security does what amounts to an alien abduction probing for hazmat endorsement.  Background check, fingerprints, etc.  May have to ask them next time I fly.  I don't expect any of them to have that level of comprehension, though.

[Hoss]

We refused to get on board with the "real id" thing the Fed is pushing through...to "protect" us.  Will need a valid passport if don't have an approved state ID and Oklahoma is not gonna comply (last I heard - couple weeks ago).  Fun times coming.

I am curious if a CDL from OK will be ok with TSA, since the Dept of Homeland Security does what amounts to an alien abduction probing for hazmat endorsement.  Background check, fingerprints, etc.  May have to ask them next time I fly.  I don't expect any of them to have that level of comprehension, though.

Wonder if my CCL will suffice...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Wonder if my CCL will suffice...

They may change their mind between now and then....

Hey, I wonder what our magnificent Senator is doing to help Oklahoman's with this unwarranted intrusion??  (I bet I can guess....)

[nathanm]

I already enjoy a TSA "massage" every time I fly, so the TSA's approval or disapproval of Oklahoma's IDs is completely meaningless to me. After all, why would I want to forgo part of a service I'm paying for?

Other than the other passengers staring at me like I'm Richard Reid, anyway...

[patric]

I already enjoy a TSA "massage" every time I fly, so the TSA's approval or disapproval of Oklahoma's IDs is completely meaningless to me. After all, why would I want to forgo part of a service I'm paying for?
Other than the other passengers staring at me like I'm Richard Reid, anyway...

I think Tulsa was among the first to get the old-style X-ray machines.  Anyone know for sure?





The Transportation Security Administration has been moving its X-ray body scanners from LAX, O'Hare and JFK, and putting them in less-busy airports.
http://www.propublica.org/article/tsa-removes-x-ray-body-scanners-from-major-airports

The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly moving its X-ray body scanners from major airports over the last few weeks and replacing them with machines that radiation experts believe are safer.

The TSA says it made the decision not because of safety concerns but to speed up checkpoints at busier airports. It means, though, that far fewer passengers will be exposed to radiation because the X-ray scanners are being moved to smaller airports.

The backscatters, as the X-ray scanners are known, were swapped out at Boston Logan International Airport in early October. Similar replacements have occurred at Los Angeles International Airport, Chicago O'Hare, Orlando and John F. Kennedy in New York, the TSA confirmed Thursday.
The X-ray scanners have faced a barrage of criticism since the TSA began rolling them out nationwide after the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day 2009. One reason is that they emit a small dose of ionizing radiation, which at higher levels has been linked to cancer.

In addition, privacy advocates decried that the machines produce images, albeit heavily blurred, of passengers' naked bodies. Each image must be reviewed by a TSA officer, slowing security lines.
The replacement machines, known as millimeter-wave scanners, rely on low-energy radio waves similar to those used in cell phones. The machines detect potential threats automatically and quickly using a computer program. They display a generic cartoon image of a person's body, mitigating privacy concerns.

The United States remains one of the only countries in the world to X-ray passengers for airport screening. The European Union prohibited the backscatters last year "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety," according to a statement at the time. The last scanners were removed from Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom last month.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two types of body scanners the TSA uses.

The X-ray scanner looks like two blue refrigerator-sized boxes. Unseen to the passenger, a thin beam scans left and right and up and down. The rays reflect back to the scanner, creating an image of the passenger's body and any objects hidden under his or her clothes.

The millimeter-wave scanner looks like a round glass booth. Two rotating antennas circle the passenger, emitting radio frequency waves. Instead of creating a picture of the passenger's body, a computer algorithm looks for anomalies and depicts them as yellow boxes on a cartoon image of the body.

[nathanm]

I think Tulsa was among the first to get the old-style X-ray machines.  Anyone know for sure?

First to have millimeter wave. AFAIK, there have never been any backscatter x-ray machines here. First to do away with the WTMD for passengers, also.

Not that the TSA uses it for opt-outs anyway, stupidly enough. Only about 25% of the time is the patdown actually as thorough as it's supposed to be. Even when they do it mostly correctly, including the cuff, collar, waistband, and hair(!) search they fail to touch my genitals, as is required by procedure. I usually get the old style cursory frisk, though.

What's really stupid is that it's not actually that difficult to defeat the scanner if you know which kind you'll be subject to. And the TSA further compounds it by not fully patting down passengers that fail the MMW. They only pat down an area of interest. Since the MMW machines have a false positive rate over 25%, full patdowns for folks who fail the MMW machine would deter people from trying to game the scanner. As it is, if the machine generates a spurious alert, it won't likely identify the area with the artfully concealed item.

We basically have one machine that is more window dressing than actual security and another that is known to have fewer safeguards against overexposure and less frequent testing/calibration than the x-ray in your dentist's office, so gives you an unknowable dose of x-rays. The one machine that did work, the explosives trace detection portal, was deemed to be too expensive to maintain and scrapped.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Last flight (week and a half ago), my leg didn't pass the xray machine, so when I got through, the TSA person had to rub it for me....er, uh, inspect the calf area.

[patric]

First to have millimeter wave. AFAIK, there have never been any backscatter x-ray machines here. First to do away with the WTMD for passengers, also.

Do we have Active or Passive?  Active is believed to corrupt DNA
http://epic.org/privacy/airtravel/backscatter/
and are neither regulated nor approved by the FDA (as the X-ray scanners would be).

[patric]

First to do away with the WTMD for passengers, also.

A TPS instructor once told me that TIA sends all it's broken Walk-Thru Metal Detectors to the schools for window dressing. 

[nathanm]

Do we have Active or Passive? 

I'm pretty sure the L3 machines we have are active MMW scanners.

and are neither regulated nor approved by the FDA (as the X-ray scanners would be).

The x-ray scanners aren't actually regulated by the FDA. They should be, but aren't.

[patric]

Man with strange watch arrested at Oakland airport
     
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A Southern California man was arrested at Oakland International Airport after security officers found him wearing an unusual watch they said could be used to make a timing device for a bomb, authorities said Friday.

Geoffrey McGann, 49, of Rancho Palos Verdes was taken into custody Thursday night after he tried to pass through airport security with an ornate watch that had switches, wires and fuses, according to Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

A bomb squad arrived within five minutes and determined there were no explosive materials in the watch, Nelson said. The checkpoint was closed while officers secured the area.  McGann was taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin where he was charged with possessing materials to make an explosive device, sheriff's officials said. He was still in custody Friday night and could not be reached for comment.

McGann told Transportation Security Administration officers that he's an artist and the watch is art, Nelson said.

A profile for a person named Geoffrey McGann on the website LinkedIn.com lists him as the owner and creative director of a media production company called Generator Content. He attended the Art College Center of Design in Pasadena from 1984 to 1987, according to the website.

[custosnox]

Man with strange watch arrested at Oakland airport
     
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A Southern California man was arrested at Oakland International Airport after security officers found him wearing an unusual watch they said could be used to make a timing device for a bomb, authorities said Friday.

Geoffrey McGann, 49, of Rancho Palos Verdes was taken into custody Thursday night after he tried to pass through airport security with an ornate watch that had switches, wires and fuses, according to Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

A bomb squad arrived within five minutes and determined there were no explosive materials in the watch, Nelson said. The checkpoint was closed while officers secured the area.  McGann was taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin where he was charged with possessing materials to make an explosive device, sheriff's officials said. He was still in custody Friday night and could not be reached for comment.

McGann told Transportation Security Administration officers that he's an artist and the watch is art, Nelson said.

A profile for a person named Geoffrey McGann on the website LinkedIn.com lists him as the owner and creative director of a media production company called Generator Content. He attended the Art College Center of Design in Pasadena from 1984 to 1987, according to the website.

So now steampunk is on TSA's watch list?  Nevermind that you can make a timer with a cheap watch from Walmart

[Ed W]

Terrorists prefer the Casio F91W.  Honest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees_accused_of_possessing_Casio_watches



I want one for Christmas.

[Townsend]

The TSA Is Killing Us

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/20/counterproductive_airport_security_does_tsa_cause_more_deaths_than_it_prevents.html

Complaining about airport security is basically universal at this point, but I think people actually continue to underestimate how terrible the status quo is. I'm not sure that a "no security whatsoever" policy would be optimal, but I'm fairly confident it would be superior to what we're doing. As Charles Kenny notes a big part of the problem here is that driving a car a long distance is incredibly risky compared to flying on a plane:

"There is lethal collateral damage associated with all this spending on airline security—namely, the inconvenience of air travel is pushing more people onto the roads. Compare the dangers of air travel to those of driving. To make flying as dangerous as using a car, a four-plane disaster on the scale of 9/11 would have to occur every month, according to analysis published in the American Scientist. Researchers at Cornell University suggest that people switching from air to road transportation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks led to an increase of 242 driving fatalities per month—which means that a lot more people died on the roads as an indirect result of 9/11 than died from being on the planes that terrible day. They also suggest that enhanced domestic baggage screening alone reduced passenger volume by about 5 percent in the five years after 9/11, and the substitution of driving for flying by those seeking to avoid security hassles over that period resulted in more than 100 road fatalities."

Something that I would love to see the Transportation Security Administration, the FBI, the CIA, and whoever else do is pull together an estimate of how many airplanes they think would have been blown up by terrorists if there was no passenger or baggage screening whatsoever. One way of thinking about it is this. If commercial airplanes were no more secure than your average city bus, planes would be blown up as frequently as city buses—which is to say never. I've heard some people postulate that terrorists have a special affection for blowing up planes, but I'm not sure that's right. In the not-too-distant past, Israel had a substantial terrorists-blowing-up-buses problem and had to take countervailing security measures. But unlike Israel, we're not doing anything to secure our buses. It's at least possible that nobody blows up American buses because nobody is trying to blow anything up.

Maybe they have some persuasive argument that zero is too low an estimate. But what's the right number? And does it outweigh the deadly impact of inducing additional highway driving? Outweigh it by enough to be worth the money and the hassle?

[Red Arrow]

The TSA Is Killing Us

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/20/counterproductive_airport_security_does_tsa_cause_more_deaths_than_it_prevents.html

But unlike Israel, we're not doing anything to secure our buses

I believe the Israelis allow profiling.